The courts begin to talk about lesbicide: they order an investigation into the accused for the triple hate crime.
The judge was ordered to expand the investigation of the defendant in the triple lesbicide in Barracas and to consider the case as a hate crime, as requested by the plaintiffs and the Prosecutor's Office. The Court's decision was announced on the birthday of Andrea, Sofía's partner, the only survivor.
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CITY OF BUENOS AIRES (Argentina) . Although the courts had been refusing to classify Fernando Justo Barrientos' attack, which resulted in the deaths of Pamela Fabiana Cobas, Mercedes Roxana Figueroa, and Andrea Amarante, and injured Sofía Castro Riglos, as a lesbicide , a decision by another judicial body is beginning to call things by their name and may change the course of the investigation, as the different parties have been requesting. Yesterday, the National Court of Criminal and Correctional Appeals, from its 7th Chamber, ordered the judge in the Edmundo Rabbione case to expand the investigation into Fernando Barrientos (detained in a prison in Ezeiza) for lesbicide.
The Chamber's resolution was in response to a brief from two of them: Sofía—the only survivor of multiple lesbian murder—and the Legal Assistance and Sponsorship Program for Victims of Crimes of the National Public Defender's Office. The Attorney General's Office had also filed this complaint.
The decision was announced on Thursday, May 15, the day Sofía's partner, Andrea, would have turned 18. "Sofía Castro Riglos, upon hearing the news of the court's decision FAVORABLE TO HER CLAIM, remembered her partner, Andrea Amarante, who would have turned 18 today. During their time together, Andrea and Solía fought against the violence they experienced for being lesbians in a relationship. They denounced the discrimination every chance they got—every sexual assault, every attempt at eviction from a shelter, every attempt at forced hospitalization, every time they were ordered to separate because the other didn't have the required subsidy to stay at the hotel. Those paper trails, Andrea's furious words, take on a macabre meaning that the judiciary seems only just beginning to recognize," stated the statement from the organization Yo no fui (I Wasn't) and Sofía's complaint.
Until now, the judicial investigation was close to being elevated to trial as "homicide aggravated by cruelty, treachery, and aggravated by common danger and serious injuries." Despite multiple indications that this was an act fraught with discrimination and hatred based on sexual orientation, the courts were failing to produce evidence to prove or rule out this hypothesis. Nor had they called witnesses who told some media outlets, including Presentes, that the victims had been harassed by the attacker. In December, Sofía's complaint, led by attorney Luciana Sánchez, had challenged Judge Rabbione on the grounds of revictimization, a lack of gender and diversity perspective, refusing to consider the victims as lesbians, and other irregularities.
Why the cause may take a turn
The Chamber requests that Barrientos expand his statement . Chamber colleagues Juan Esteban Cicciaro and Rodolfo Pociello Argerich ask Judge Rabbione to reformulate "the factual platform communicated to Barrientos."
Among the arguments they say that an “adequate description of the objective and subjective aspects of the attributed homicide is needed, particularly as they are linked to the alleged hatred of gender or sexual orientation, gender identity or its expression contemplated in section 4 of article 80 of the Penal Code, in accordance with what the appellants postulated and also what the Public Prosecutor's Office claimed in due time, since it understood that the “excessive hatred” exhibited by the brutal manner of the attack “can only be explained by the victims' status as lesbians ” (see the opinion presented on August 27, 2024).
Lesbicide: the request to Justice
All the lawsuits are asking for it to be classified as a hate crime and for it to be considered a lesbicide . In total, four are litigating: one representing the sole survivor, Sofia, and her partner, Andrea; the other representing Marisa (Roxana's ex-partner) and Tiziano, their son, now a teenager, represented by Raquel Hermida Leyenda; and the other representing a relative of Pamela, led by the Victim Assistance Office.
Why is it important to classify it as lesbicide? Because it is a hate crime against lesbian sexual orientation. Both the international human rights organizations and the Argentine Penal Code have specific criminal offenses for these crimes, which not only threaten the lives of the victims but also send a warning message to vulnerable populations. It's about dismantling social complicity, a crucial element for these crimes to exist. The criminal charge is the same as in homicide, but it's not about punitivism, but rather about a justice system that aims to understand the case, generate prevention policies, and transform the lives of all people so they can live in conditions of equality.
In 2012, Article 80 of the Argentine Penal Code was amended, and articles were introduced that specifically refer to femicide (Article 11) and hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity, an aggravating circumstance contemplated in Article 4, which refers to homicide committed “for pleasure, greed, racial, religious, gender hatred or sexual orientation, gender identity or its expression.”
Just as the word "femicide" is used to describe crimes committed based on gender, "travesticide" or "transfemicide" is used to describe crimes committed against transvestite and trans people, and "lesbicide" is used to describe hate crimes against lesbians.
The attack on four lesbian women
At midnight between Sunday, May 5, 2024, and Monday, May 6, Justo Fernando Barrientos, who lived in a room next to the one shared by the four victims in the Canarias family hotel in Barracas (Buenos Aires), opened the door and threw an explosive device towards the beds where they were sleeping and set them on fire.
Pamela died a few hours after the attack. Roxana died a day later, and Andrea a week later. All from burns.
Life after for the only survivor of lesbicide
Sofía spent several weeks hospitalized, receiving assistance from organizations that wove activist networks, including the organization Yo no Fui (I Didn't Go), the Bonaparte Hospital, and other institutions. Sofía lost her friends, her partner, and the space she lived in. Today , she lives in Casa Andrea, a community home for women and people of color, an initiative of organizations, and is supported by a network of lesbian activists. In December, a ruling by the City of Buenos Aires Court determined that the Buenos Aires City government must guarantee her housing. More than a year after the mass murder, organizations continue to demand reparations for her.
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